Volume No. XVIII
Volume No. XVII
Volume No. XVI
Volume No. XV
Volume No. XIV
Volume No. XIII
Volume No. XII
Volume No. XI
Volume No. X
Volume No. IX
Volume No. VIII
Volume No. VII
Volume No. VI
Volume No. V
Volume No. IV
Volume No. III
Volume No. II
Volume No. I
Archives
Volume No. I
Volume No. II
Volume No. III
Volume No. IV
Volume No. V
Volume No. VI
Volume No. VII
Volume No. VIII
Volume No. IX
Volume No. X
Volume No. XI
Volume No. XII
Volume No. XIII
Volume No. XIV
Volume No. XV
Volume No. XVI
Volume No. XVII
Volume No. XVIII
initiation is painful but quick
before you know you've signed up been beaten down you're enrolled entangled in a web created by circumstance
your friends your family do not understand
why you accept the inevitable
they are mad frustrated scared
as you are branded by gang symbols
scars and funny haircuts
you're labeled titled
and it's not just for a day week month year
you're a lifer
many die trying to get out
others give it up give in to the new code words time tables to the abandonment of a life previous
some survive the last beating gang bang
but they remember that once you're in you're in
and something can always lurk beneath the shadows of your skin
Julie Bolitho-Lee originates from northern Michigan and she uses her hand as a map when pointing to her hometown; however she currently lives in Oxford, England with her husband and their menagerie of rescue animals. Her poem, "The Cancer Gang," was written ten years ago when she underwent cancer treatments during her second year of university.
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